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1. Prior Art
Various types of text processing methods are known. In some conventional text processing systems, it is possible to detect spelling errors by means of a so called spelling processor. The spelling processor checks each word of the text against a dictionary, see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,342,085. If a word of the text cannot be matched to any word of the dictionary, it is concluded that this word is misspelled. Some spelling processors are even capable of automatically correcting a spelling error by replacing the misspelled word by a word from the dictionary. In order to identify the correct word in the dictionary, sophisticated computing methods have been developed, that are based on an analysis of similarities between the words, and/or on a statistical approach considering the different frequencies of occurrence of certain types of spelling errors, or even on an analysis of the context of the misspelled work, exploiting the redundance of the text, e.g., European Patent Application No. 0093249 A3, UK Patent Application GB 2136612A.
However, in connection with the use of units and magnitudes, for example in a scientific text, a number of specific problems and, accordingly, a number of specific errors and mistakes are frequently encountered, that cannot be handled by a conventional spelling processor.